The present invention relates to a trigeneration energy supply system capable of providing all of power, heating, and cooling to a building.
Generally, a trigeneration energy supply system is a system which provides all of power, heating, and cooling to a building. A conventional trigeneration energy supply system, in addition to a cogeneration system, uses an absorption type refrigerator, an adsorption type refrigerator, a turbo type refrigerator, a dehumidification type refrigerator, etc. Generation and heating are performed at the same time using the cogeneration system, and cooling is performed by operating the absorption type refrigerator, the adsorption type refrigerator, the turbo type refrigerator, or the dehumidification type refrigerator using waste heat and surplus power generated by a cogeneration process. Particularly, since a demand for heating generally decreases and a demand for cooling greatly increases in summer, it is very important to use waste heat efficiently during the cogeneration process in an aspect of using energy production facilities efficiently.
Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2013-0034909 (Apr. 8, 2013) discloses a configuration formed by combining a cogeneration system which performs power generation and heating with an adsorption type cooling system which performs cooling using waste heat during a cogeneration process. A problem of the conventional technology described above is that the adsorption type (or an absorption type) cooling system has a lower coefficient of performance (COP) than a turbo type cooling system. A COP of the turbo type cooling system is from 3.5 to 4.5, but the adsorption type cooling system using waste heat is merely from 1.0 to 1.5. Accordingly, since it is generally difficult to cope with cooling loads of a whole building only using an adsorption type (or an absorption type) refrigerator, the adsorption type (or the absorption type) refrigerator may be used in combination with a turbo type refrigerator.
Meanwhile, in an aspect of exhaustion of fossil energy sources and reduction of greenhouse gases, it is becoming more important to efficiently utilize new renewable energy sources such as sunlight, wind power, etc. However, a generation amount of sunlight or wind power generation method is not uniform but variable depending on weather, seasons, conditions, etc. Due to intermittent generation which is a disadvantage of sunlight and wind power generation methods, since a point in time at which energy (power, heat, etc.) is generated using a new renewable energy source does not coincide with a point in time at which users demand energy, availability of such new renewable energy sources greatly decreases in the aspects of system operation and economy.
Accordingly, a system for appropriately utilizing an intermittently generated new renewable distributed power source has been needed. Particularly, considering the availability of solar energy, which is capable of generating high amounts of energy in the summer, it is necessary to effectively use solar energy for cooling.